FaffCon 9 Slideshow! – The Not Silent Blog – 9/26/17

It’s the most important weekend of my year. FaffCon 9 is the penultimate (that’s the fancy way of saying second-to-last) FaffCon there will ever be so that makes it all the more precious.

For those of you who aren’t familiar with FaffCon…

FaffCon: the voiceover unconference, is a participant-driven professional development event for working voiceover industry pros. Its highly-interactive, peer-to-peer learning environment is consistently credited with helping establish VO-industry pros take their careers to the next level. Prospective participants must meet certain criteria and apply to attend.

That’s me at my exhibit table. I attended FaffCon 9 not only as a voice talent but as a Key Supporting Sponsor and The VO Strategist. That’s the voiceover business coaching & consulting I do. Click here to learn more about that.

That’s me presenting at my “After Dark” session where I got to talk about the importance of being an effective voiceover business as well as a voiceover artist. Do you like my tie?

That’s my good friend and travel buddy Liz De Nesnera leading a Breakout Session. There were many, many incredible Breakout Sessions. I learned a ton about managing your finances, recording & editing, marketing & networking, and managing the chaos that is your professional and personal life.

I also led a Breakout Session about Explainer Videos. They were a fun, engaged crowd and a genuine pleasure to work with.

Faffers are a mighty generous bunch. We raised over $10,000 for hurricane relief!

There were too many “Aha” moments and special exchanges to mention with both old friends and new. As always, it was a magical experience that helped make me a better voice talent and a better person.

TIP OF THE WEEK

Normally I’d say that if you’ve never been to FaffCon that you must go. Sadly, there is only one FaffCon left and only “Frequent Faffers” will be permitted to attend. Instead, I will say this:

The critical component which makes Faffcon function is that all attendees have been vetted and must be able to contribute to the “un-conference” experience. Some voice talents have waited years to be admitted because they’re not ready.

I say this because while we do live in a free, capitalist society and ideally you should be allowed to work in whichever vocation you wish, you need to be qualified to be effective. Working is a right, but I feel that working as a voice talent is a privilege.

Many, many, many people are pursuing a career in the voiceover industry who are not qualified and frankly, have been making a bit of a messs. They’re not qualified because they have little or no training, inadequate facilities & equipment, work for rates that are way below the standard, and are insufferable, entitled jackasses on social media.

If you want to be an effective voice talent, practice patience! Save enough money to properly invest in training, demo production, home recording studio construction, website construction, marketing, and maintaining all of it. If you can’t afford it yet, don’t do it yet! Figure out (or ask me) how much money you need to start and maintain your business, then come up with a savings plan. You will only hurt your chances of being successful if you dive in too soon.

From my village to yours; this is Tom Dheere, The H is Silent, but I’m Not.

Tom Dheere is a 20-year veteran of the voice over industry who has narrated thousands of projects for clients in over a dozen countries. He is also a coach at Edge Studio, voiceover business consultant known as the Voice OverStrategist, and is currently producing the comic book “Agent 1.22”.